Pioneer and ICG continue to sponsor Indy 205

Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business, and the Iowa Corn Growers Association (ICGA) are teaming up for the second year in a row to educate consumers about ethanol through their sponsorship of the Iowa Corn Indy 250. The race will be held June 21, 2009 at the Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa and broadcast live on the ABC television network.

According to Craig Floss, CEO of the Iowa Corn Growers, the race is an excellent opportunity to inform the general public about the benefits of corn and ethanol. “Our reach has moved well beyond the state of Iowa to a national and even a global audience,” said Floss. “We are able to have the sponsorship opportunities on television this year which is a great way for us to talk about corn, all the places corn goes, and all the products that include corn.”

The Iowa Indy 250 is a showcase for the power and performance value of ethanol, with all cars in the series running on 100 percent fuel-grade ethanol. Floss says the ethanol industry is extremely important to the state of Iowa and its corn growers. “We believe we are going to continue to produce an ever-increasing amount of corn and the ethanol sector presents a tremendous opportunity for us to move a lot more bushels of corn that get produced in the future,” he said.

Pioneer has a long history of supporting new uses for corn to keep agriculture strong and Russ Saunders, who is Director of End Use Markets for the company, says sponsorship of the Iowa Corn 250 is a great opportunity to show that support for ethanol and corn growers. “When we look at how fuel prices seem to be headed back up and we have economic challenges all around us, it's more important than ever that we tell the story of ethanol,” said Saunders. “The Iowa Corn 250 is such a terrific opportunity because it reaches literally millions of people all around the world with the message of ethanol.”

Saunders says Pioneer has been working to provide new technologies for growers to produce more and better corn to provide the food, feed and fuel needs of the nation and the world. “We work on a couple of different levels,” said Saunders. “One is to develop grain that literally yields more ethanol per bushel by improving the compositional value of the kernel.”

“The second area involves producing more corn per acre or greater yields,” he continued. “At Pioneer we talk about being able to double the yield of corn in the next ten years.” In addition, Pioneer is working on corn varieties that use less nitrogen fertilizer and less water and Pioneer's parent company Dupont is actively involved in the development of second generation cellulosic ethanol.

The Iowa Corn 250 will be broadcast live on ABC starting at noon central time on June 21 with race time at 12:30 pm. Tickets and other information about the Iowa Corn 250 can be found on the Iowa Speedway website, www.iowaspeedway.com.

More information about the Iowa corn industry is available on the ICGA website, www.iowacorn.org, and more information about Pioneer can be found at www.pioneer.com.